[HN Gopher] Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?
___________________________________________________________________
Why are UK electricity bills so expensive?
Author : chmaynard
Score : 129 points
Date : 2024-12-20 16:05 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (climate.benjames.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (climate.benjames.io)
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Some of these are "costs" which reduce costs elsewhere.
|
| Smart meters for example, though rollout has hit snags and
| they've become targets for weird conspiracy theories, they are
| basically designed to give better real time info on electricity
| demand which helps with managing the grid.
|
| This in theory should save money elsewhere.
|
| Similarly for CfD. Yes the government may on net be paying a
| subsidy to get wind power built but what was the next best
| option? If that costs more than the CfD then that's a win.
| jstanley wrote:
| But why do you need smart meters at the level of individual
| houses? Wouldn't putting them on substations get the same
| benefit with much less cost?
| coretx wrote:
| Yes, but those don't help manipulate consumer behavior and
| awareness.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Apparently the UK government estimated that in 2016 and
| 2019 the average household saved PS11 on their bill due to
| this feedback from smart meters. This page estimates the
| cost at PS15 so 2/3rds is recovered just from that effect.
| ajb wrote:
| There's no way it only cost PS15 in total to install a
| smart meter. The cost of the meter has to be at least
| that much and then you have paying a guy to actually
| install it (which in my case took 3 attempts and caused a
| gas leak, which took 4 or 5 guys several hours to fix -
| although hopefully that's unusual).
| 6510 wrote:
| Hard to tell, they are all new now, eventually they will
| all be old. Then we will know what it really costs.
| hirako2000 wrote:
| It also took 3 attempts for me but they never showed up.
| Brybry wrote:
| From a cursory search:
|
| PS88 to PS143 installation cost in the 2019 analysis.
| [3:p.21] Smart meter hardware cost PS36 to PS120 [3:p.22]
|
| PS67 to PS107 installation cost in the 2016 analysis.
| [2:p.12] PS15 (in home display) + PS44 electric + PS57
| gas + PS29 comms equipment costs [2:p.10]
|
| [1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7f59
| f9ed915...
|
| [2] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7f2f
| 8b40f0b...
|
| [3] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5d7f54
| c4e5274...
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| It eliminates the need for staff to manually read them and
| guarantees they are read correctly every month.
| 6510 wrote:
| That is the sales pitch, the error rate on the overcharging
| side is infinitely larger than that of mechanical meters.
| Not a fun lottery to win.
| Symbiote wrote:
| The alternative isn't a mechanical meter anyway. It's an
| electronic meter that must be read manually.
| sgerenser wrote:
| What makes smart meters more likely to read high?
| toast0 wrote:
| 20-30 year old mechanical meters tend to be pretty
| accurate, but when they aren't, they tend to read low.
| Especially if your usage is fairly low, the minimum usage
| to push the wheels forward may be higher than your
| standby loads.
|
| If you've been on a meter that reads low for a long time,
| a new meter (mechanical or electronic) will be a big
| jump.
| philjohn wrote:
| It also opens up more granular time-of-use tariffs than
| Economy 7.
|
| Intelligent Octopus Go being one example.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| They also identify outages and let you do automatic
| efficiency stuff -- you can enroll in a plan where your car
| charges during off-peak periods, for example.
| conradludgate wrote:
| My energy supplier (Octopus) gives me a tarrif with half-
| hourly pricing (smart meters in the UK only report with 30
| minutes resolution).
|
| This let's me know when electricity is in less demand or high
| supply and schedule my day around it. Making my electricity
| bill cheaper and likewise putting less strain on the supplier
| which reduces their costs too
| conradludgate wrote:
| The other week, it was not very windy but it was cold, so
| the energy price spiked pretty high (PS1/kwh). Other times
| the energy price falls pretty low, and I regularly see it
| be negative for some hours of the night or rarely up until
| the afternoon.
|
| Paired with a home battery it can be pretty effective, but
| I don't have one and instead I just work around it and use
| my electrical heating more when it's cheaper and rely on my
| insulation to last throughout when it gets more expensive
| during the day. I've also started cooking dinner later to
| get past the evening hump.
| conradludgate wrote:
| Here's my prices for tomorrow for those who are
| interested. They publish an API for this too which I have
| loaded into a spreadsheet for my own entertainment
|
| https://imgur.com/a/Z3yCNow
| Hamuko wrote:
| Just shifting some electricity usage around is a pretty
| solid tactic with dynamic pricing.
|
| I'm currently paying wholesale + 0.49 c/kWh margin for my
| electricity and I'm averaging out to 6.67 c/kWh (incl.
| margin) in December. Wholesale average has been about
| 6.61 c/kWh. Add transfer and tax on top of that and it's
| around 0.13 EUR/kWh total.
|
| I live in an apartment so the two big electricity-wasters
| are the dishwasher and the washing machine. Delaying
| doing the laundry by a couple of days or running the
| dishwasher half a day later keeps the average much lower.
| And if you have an EV, just charge it during the night
| when wholesale prices get closer to 0EUR.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| In a competent implementation, real-time metering can enable
| near-real-time pricing where consumers are incentivized to
| vary their consumption to help grid stability.
|
| Your EV can modulate its charging very quickly, and
| "background" loads like electric heating, water heater or
| even A/C can also be modulated somewhat quickly (though not
| as quick as an EV's inverter).
|
| The meter needs however to make sure you indeed complied with
| the demand in order to pay you fairly (otherwise if people
| can defect on their obligation and still get paid, it defeats
| the purpose of the scheme of ensuring grid stability).
|
| Doing this at the substation is not granular enough because
| then you can no longer determine who contributed what and
| whom to pay, which then removes any incentive for people
| actually participate.
|
| In theory, this should lead to significant savings and
| efficiency benefits, as everyone opted into the scheme can
| now be used as an on-demand load to dump excess power (during
| which power is not only free, but the consumer may even be
| _paid_ to consume that power) to smooth out supply /demand
| fluctuations.
|
| Of course, the UK's smart meter scheme is administered by
| Capita, so don't expect any of this to actually happen, work
| reliably or actually lead to any kind of significant
| benefits, but _in theory_ , it would be a great thing as long
| as it's done by competent people without
| corruption/mismatched incentives.
| desas wrote:
| Octopus are already doing this in the UK,so it does
| actually happen.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Maybe, but the long term planning has been atrocious, millions
| of smart meters already need replacing because of the 3g switch
| off.
|
| It's massively wasteful if they are all going to need replacing
| again in 10 years when 4g is switched off.
|
| Not to mention the concerns about electricity companies
| remotely forcing meters into prepayment mode or switching off
| people's electricity supply.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Something (2G?) is generally staying available so "smart"
| devices can work for decades.
| celsoazevedo wrote:
| Planing has been bad, but those smart meters can use 2G/EDGE.
| The meters using mobile networks use O2, which should keep 2G
| online until the 2030s.
|
| 3G is being discontinued first because it uses more power and
| is inefficient for data. 2G on the other hand uses less
| power, allows phones without VoLTE support to make calls, and
| IoT devices to use (slow) data. Over the next year or so we
| should see networks restricting data over 2G/EDGE for regular
| devices (calls only), keeping the data side just for IoT.
| blitzar wrote:
| > the government may on net be paying a subsidy to get wind
| power built but what was the next best option? If that costs
| more than the CfD then that's a win.
|
| Direct investment with ownership - that would make money for
| the tax payer but would be "socialism".
| baggy_trough wrote:
| 29p / kWh doesn't hold a candle to PG&E costs in the San
| Francisco Bay Area.
|
| It's ironic that it's quite a bit cheaper to use natural gas
| here, since we're supposed to convert to electricity to save the
| planet.
| barbazoo wrote:
| I would say it's tragic, not ironic.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| The cost of bailing out owners of burnt down homes in Paradise,
| CA worth $0 for $700k is rolled into every San Francisco PG&E
| bill.
| tristor wrote:
| I think that's a bit of color on that, since those homes
| weren't worth $0 until PG&E caused a fire that burnt them
| down by neglecting required maintenance.
| tehlike wrote:
| In a way it's subsidizing people in the country side.
| tristor wrote:
| No, it's making people whole for real monetary and
| property damages caused by PG&E's negligence. It's the
| settlement of a lawsuit, because PG&E was negligent and
| caused damage.
|
| Whether those people rebuild in Paradise, CA or move
| somewhere else with the money they received from the
| settlement is an entirely different proposition. This is
| not "subsidizing people in the country side". PG&E fucked
| up and now they have to pay. PG&E is choosing to pass the
| cost to its customers rather than eating into its
| profits, which is a decision that California allowed them
| to make.
|
| EDIT: You and the GP I originally replied to seem to be
| making the argument that after PG&E burned all these
| people's homes down they should have been allowed to just
| tell them to get bent so your utility bill wouldn't go up
| in the city? What happens when it's /your/ home that gets
| burnt down? "Sorry bucko, but your house is worth $0 as
| it's just now a smoldering ruin. No soup for you. -
| Thanks PG&E"
| tehlike wrote:
| I am actually not saying PGE shouldn't have to pay etc.
| But this dynamic is part of being a country. In some
| ways, it's similar to the insurance industry where we get
| a pool of very healthy or young and sick or old people.
|
| What PGE did was terrible, but also there's a lot to
| blame on CA directly too.
| cogman10 wrote:
| I'm not saying PG&E shouldn't pay out, they were directly
| responsible.
|
| But I will say that Paradise was in a bad state prior to
| the fire, simply nobody knew how bad. While a wildfire
| like that wasn't guaranteed, they were just one bad
| lightning strike away from the same disaster.
|
| Funding FEMA, forest management services, and wildfire
| fighters something that isn't always prioritized and it
| should be.
| tehlike wrote:
| +1
| alwa wrote:
| Why is that a ratepayer's prerogative rather than the
| home insurer's?
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Did PG&E cause the fire? They are legally obligated to
| serve those customers. It would be safer if they simply
| didn't do that no?
|
| Wait till you read the facts behind this $41m bailout for
| 20 homes in one of the richest burbs of LA:
| https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-10-29/feds-
| to-...
|
| You could argue that nobody should be living in a place
| guaranteed to be destroyed, whether by landslides or
| wildfires, but the government tried that in Palos Verdes
| and got sued, lost, and now is bailing out those homeowners
| to get out of services obligations all the same.
|
| Suffice it to say, you have bought into a very well
| marketed point of view. There was a lot of ceremony to
| enact procedural blame on PG&E, but it obscures all the far
| simpler solutions, that are far more just. People in San
| Francisco are paying higher rates, no? So PG&E may have
| been responsible for something somewhere, but the liability
| is being borne functionally by taxpayers, via a compulsory
| payment for energy, to balance the books on assholes living
| in places at risk of wildfires with overinflated asset
| values. Ultimately, the government here has decided that
| you should get government-guaranteed-risk-free market rate
| returns on owner occupied real estate.
| tristor wrote:
| > Did PG&E cause the fire?
|
| Yes. As I recall it, the fire was caused by downed lines
| that were energized during a dry spell, and the reason
| the lines were downed was due to negligence around
| maintaining the C-Hooks holding their high voltage
| transmission lines. PG&E knew that they needed to be
| replaced every so often, had a policy that dictated when
| they needed to be replaced, and then ignored that policy
| which ultimately allowed a C-Hook to fail and the
| energized line to start the fire. In fact, PG&E had
| commissioned a study as far back as 1987 to look into
| this issue and confirmed that these hooks had a limited
| lifespan.
|
| They had clear knowledge of the issue. They had a
| responsibility to maintain the system to prevent the
| issue. They set policies around how that maintenance
| should be conducted. Then they willfully ignored their
| own policies, which lead to the issue they were
| responsible to prevent. That's textbook negligence.
|
| So, yes, PG&E /did/ cause the fire. They were negligent
| in doing so. They are liable for the damages.
| creato wrote:
| I agree PGE was negligent, but it also doesn't make sense
| to assign the entire cost of the resulting fire to PGE.
| The scale of the fire damage was a result of many
| factors, only some of which are due to PGE. A huge
| destructive fire was a matter of time. Whether it was
| caused by PGE, lightning, or an RV tire blowout was a
| matter of chance.
|
| Or another way to put it, how much liability would you
| give the RV drivers in these two scenarios?
|
| https://www.kktv.com/2024/07/23/rv-with-blown-tire-
| sparks-se...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carr_Fire
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| The cost wasn't assigned to PG&E. Brother, the CPUC is
| approving the rate increases to pay back the settlement.
| You are getting the same electricity today as you did in
| 2019. The entire cost was assigned to YOU.
|
| There are so many smart people on this forum. How hard is
| it to understand the spelled-out-in-the-law relationship
| between your compulsory payment for electricity rising
| and the cost of the settlements?
| richwater wrote:
| > . A huge destructive fire was a matter of time.
|
| You can't avoid legal ramifications by saying _something_
| was bound to happen
| zootboy wrote:
| And the photos of said C-hooks are pretty damning:
|
| https://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigations/new-images-of-
| pge-...
| vel0city wrote:
| > This buyout program provides a viable pathway forward
| for our most vulnerable community members
|
| > Hong estimates that his home would have been worth
| about $3.6 million two years ago
|
| Yeah, this person who was able to afford a $3.6M home
| sure sounds like "our most vulnerable" people. He needs a
| bailout for making a poor decision on buying that house
| in a place prone to landslides. Not the hungry kids in
| our schools whose parents can't afford/won't provide
| healthy meals.
|
| We got money for millionaires but not hungry kids and
| people with chronic medical needs.
|
| > "We're committed to staying," Reeves, 81, said. "We're
| pretty financially committed now."
|
| > They are weeks into a major renovation after a fissure
| forced apart rooms in their home.
|
| Their home is constantly being torn apart by the ground
| and yet they're committed to staying. Insanity.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Then it should be obvious to you the parallels with
| Paradise, CA, where average home sales prices were at
| $700k just prior to the wildfire, growing faster than San
| Francisco's prices: the reason we are doing this bailout
| is due to the politically powerful interests of a lot of
| wealthy savers. The people in this thread saying "it's
| PG&E's fault" are incredibly naive.
| vel0city wrote:
| > Then it should be obvious to you the parallels with
| Paradise, CA
|
| It is. Insane all ratepayers are shouldering all the cost
| to rebuild rich people's mansions.
| scheme271 wrote:
| That 3.6M million dollar home might have been worth a lot
| less before asset appreciation happened. There's quite a
| few people living in expensive areas that bought homes
| 20-30 years ago when it was dirt cheap, the place became
| popular, and now they're a teacher or something who owns
| a multi-million dollar home while living on 80k a year or
| something.
| vel0city wrote:
| The article also mentioned their home was a new build and
| they moved in a few years before this happened.
|
| But sure, keep telling me their new mansion on quicksand
| needs a bailout and they're far more needful than hungry
| malnourished kids.
|
| > now they're a teacher or something who owns a multi-
| million dollar home while living on 80k a year or
| something.
|
| TBH, if their home is now worth millions, they should
| retire and move someplace cheaper. The market is telling
| them that land is worth way more than a lifetime of their
| earnings. They should capitalize on that. They're still
| far weather people that he vast majority of Americans,
| and probably the top 0.001% of people on Earth. That they
| failed to cash their lotto ticket in time before their
| mansion on the quicksand fell apart leaves me zero
| sympathy.
|
| I wish I could fail at cashing in my $3.6M lotto ticket I
| bought for relative pennies. At least I would have been
| given the chance, no?
| wat10000 wrote:
| They did cause the fire.
|
| You could certainly argue that some sort of fire was
| inevitable, and that the fire would have been much less
| damaging if people hadn't built their houses in such bad
| places.
|
| But the law doesn't really care about that. You can't
| avoid liability by arguing what would have happened or
| what should have happened. If your negligence causes a
| fire and that fire destroys a house, you're liable for it
| regardless.
| toast0 wrote:
| > But the law doesn't really care about that.
|
| California has contribitory negligence. If the court
| determined it was negligent to build or keep a house in
| these places and that contributed to the loss, it must
| determine the share of loss attributable to each party
| and reduce the award. In some states, a party must have
| be less than half at fault to receive compensation, but
| California doesn't have a minimum, if you are 99% at
| fault and the other party is 1%, you can get 1% of your
| loss compensated.
| riversflow wrote:
| That's just factually incorrect. Paradise was forced to take
| PGE stock (at some unrealistic valuation) as a repayment. The
| settlement is years in the rear view mirror now. I actually
| live in the area and meet people from Paradise. Most people
| involved got absolutely shafted and the money is mostly going
| to lawyers and accountants in San Francisco. Surprise.
|
| PGE costs have gone up because the state's Public Utilities
| Commission and many of our leaders in Sacramento are in bed
| with PGE. PGE has been vastly underinvesting in
| infrastructure development and maintenance for the last 50
| years, which is at least partially the PUC's fault by letting
| them take profits instead of forcing them to either lower
| rates or reinvest. The Camp Fire shined a light on the
| neglect, now they have to play catch up on 50 years of
| deferred maintenance in many quite remote areas.
|
| Local Sacramento ABC Station actually does some decent
| investigative report on this. If you are interested there is
| a fair amount of content to go through, as they started the
| investigation in 2022, the series is called Fire Power Money.
|
| Link here https://www.abc10.com/search?q=fire+power+money
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| I appreciate your wisdom to use ChatGPT's search to verify
| your facts about the Paradise settlements. If you're asking
| me, is it a good idea to administer a settlement between
| PG&E and the Camp Fire victims? No. We agree there. I don't
| doubt for a second that ratepayers and victims are getting
| a bad deal! I don't think we should have ever agreed to the
| settlement, and Sacramento made a huge mistake.
|
| But: the settlement's law traded on the exact empathy you
| do right now.
|
| Here's where we disagree: what evidence do you need to see
| to be convinced that _nobody_ should be living in your
| community? Harsh words right? It 's the exact opposite of
| the empathy you are trying to get through, that I
| appreciate.
|
| I think smart people struggle with climate science, viewing
| it as strictly a set of facts, when in fact it is deeply
| political: it is telling us where we can and cannot live,
| which is as powerful as violence-protected borders.
|
| We have pretty unequivocal evidence that tells us on the
| time scales of realizing real estate returns, some
| communities will be "worth" "$0."
|
| Do you think we should have insurance of last resort in
| California? Insurers read the same scientific studies and
| don't protect people's homes from wildfires. It is
| basically immaterial in the long term which human activity
| causes the wildfire - as you say, the settlement is in the
| rear view mirror - it could have been a gender reveal party
| that started the flame, and then, what would you do, make
| that person personally liable for billions of dollars? It
| would be bailout all the same, poorly administered, because
| it is simply _impossible_ to not "absolutely shaft"
| someone who says their home is worth $700k when it is
| actually worth $0.
|
| It costs $42m to just bail out 20 homes in Palos Verdes, a
| community with very politically powerful people. It's a
| slow motion crisis in California.
|
| Do you think we should bail out all the home owners in San
| Francisco, who bought their homes at $40,000, pay tiny Prop
| 13 dynastically protected rates and therefore pay little
| taxes to their own community, and have things nominally
| worth $1.4m, when an earthquake hits? That's not _your_
| community, and suddenly, oh man, that sounds expensive,
| man, you don 't have bottomless empathy for that community.
| Should nobody be living in San Francisco because of the
| earthquake risk? Tough question.
|
| So what if I spin some narrative that someone somewhere is
| responsible or liable? It is impossible for any entity to
| pay off all those people, including the government - it
| couldn't even compensate the 10x fewer victims of Camp
| Fire.
|
| The solution to me is simple: don't buy a house, and if you
| do, don't make it your only means of savings. I can escape
| a wildfire, and I think I can escape an earthquake, but my
| life will not be ruined, as long as I do not own an
| overpriced home. You are talking about leaders in bed with
| PG&E or whatever, conspiracies, and right in front of you,
| you are surrounded, in your community, by people who
| believe their real estate gives market returns risk free.
| tehlike wrote:
| For reference, I think we get around 60-65c/kWh here...
|
| I sometimes hangout on /r/homelab, and people are talking about
| their 600-700W homelab setup. That would cost about
| 300-350$/month here.
| barbazoo wrote:
| That'd be GBP 0.48-0.52
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| People are screaming from the rooftops here when we
| occasionally hit 15 c/kWh in winter. In August this year our
| electricity cost was $15 for the whole house. Hydropower is
| nice like that.
|
| My homelab in the basement is running an old Dell R730. It
| draws 200-300W depending on load. I could get something much
| more efficient, but then I would need to run a space heater
| in that room for most of the year...
| wil421 wrote:
| Yikes, my rate is $0.0825/kWH in the southern US. Part
| Nuclear but too much Natural Gas in my opinion.
| tehlike wrote:
| That's a great rate. My homelab excluding poe stuff I
| suspect will end up using 300-500W. Not a lot of money but
| still annoying to be paying.
|
| 1. 56G mellanox switch - 35W
|
| 2. An old box I made a router - 50W
|
| 3. A two node server - 220W each
|
| Replacing (2) with something that idles at 10W Will
| probably do one node for (3) so got more ram to try out.
|
| I wish we had cheap energy. I could add much more stuff to
| this lol.
| wil421 wrote:
| My UniFi mad PoE setup draws about 100w and my NAS
| another 100w or so. The i3 in my Supermicro board has
| been quite the efficient little CPU. My AMD 7950 and a
| 4070ti had to be taken off one my UPS because it was
| going over 1000w at times. Not sure what the full draw is
| while gaming.
|
| The thing that kept me away from retired server hardware
| isn't so much the power draw as it is the fan noise.
| vladslav wrote:
| I sometimes catch myself thinking about whether it's worth
| collecting wood by the road to burn as a way to heat the house.
| tehlike wrote:
| Some people on craigslist sometimes are giving away wood for
| free (you just need to arrange transport).
|
| So yes, in some ways, it'd be whole lot cheaper, and
| nostalgic too.
| secondcoming wrote:
| That's the charge for energy usage, but there's another charge
| - the Standing Charge - that's charged per day just for having
| a connection to the grid.
|
| In 2021, for me this was PS0.236 per day, today it's PS0.60 per
| day.
| samatman wrote:
| Third option not discussed: have the military leverage its
| existing nuclear reactor competency to build a fleet of
| nationalized nuclear power generation stations. I'm not saying
| that they should tile the island with submarine-scale reactors,
| I'm saying that their supply chain for building those knows how
| to build nuclear power stations.
|
| The only thing which makes this prospect expensive, is the lack
| of political will to make it not expensive. So find the political
| will.
| this_user wrote:
| And how exactly would adding more of the most expensive way to
| generate power help reduce costs?
|
| See: https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-
| interactive/2024/may/24/...
| logicchains wrote:
| Empirically it doesn't seem that way given countries with
| nuclear power have cheaper electricity than those without.
| It's especially illustrative to compare power costs in France
| and Germany before and after Germany closed all its nuclear
| plants.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| It's only expensive because we build so few, so have to start
| the design from scratch each time.
|
| If you look at China they design one nuke station and just
| copy and paste it to reduce costs, since parts can be mass
| produced.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| It isn't more expensive than what the UK has.
|
| The reason we are in this position is because we looked at
| building nuclear in the mid-2010s, the cost would have been
| about half current prices, we didn't build because they were
| too expensive.
|
| Nothing has been more costly than not investing in capacity.
| chickenbig wrote:
| > And how exactly would adding more of the most expensive way
| to generate power help reduce costs?
|
| Yes, the Australian GenCost report is about generation costs
| (no mention of transmission or storage in that graphic, for
| instance).
|
| The https://www.electricitybills.uk breakdown shows that the
| cost to the consumer consists of far more than just the cost
| of generating electricity. Intermittents generally connect to
| the distribution network (given their smaller output).
| Intermittents necessitate transmission upgrades because wind
| farms are in a different location to people and require
| overbuilding of capacity. Intermittents require more
| balancing because a passing cloud or lull in the wind affects
| their output. Intermittents require capacity payments for the
| backup (methane) generators that have to keep on standby.
|
| Plus let us not forget that the intermittent generators get
| revenue from RO, CfD, and FIT.
| immibis wrote:
| I know that at some point in tbe last few years, oil and gas
| companies invested in uranium mines so they could continue
| their game of "you base your entire civilization on the stuff
| that only we can dig out of the ground, so pay up." That was
| the same time these comments started appearing all over the
| internet.
|
| Also, I don't want another Chernobyl next to me house, so those
| reactors had better be properly made, therefore expensive.
| samatman wrote:
| Believe it or not, but the matter going into solar panels and
| batteries also has to be dug out of the ground. The
| difference is that you need a great deal more of that matter
| to deliver comparable amounts of power compared to fission.
| nradov wrote:
| There is a bit of overlap but military reactors designed for
| propulsion have little in common with civilian reactors
| designed for efficient power production. They are optimized for
| entirely different priorities.
| rjsw wrote:
| On one level, your idea is being followed. Rolls-Royce build
| the UK submarine reactors and are working on developing small
| modular reactors [1] for civilian use.
|
| A big difference though is that UK (and US) submarine reactors
| use enriched uranium, SMRs won't.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_SMR
| samatman wrote:
| > _A big difference though is that UK (and US) submarine
| reactors use enriched uranium, SMRs won 't._
|
| I addressed that difference in my second sentence. The
| technological competence is to a large degree transferable,
| the specific designs are not.
|
| And yes, something like the SMR is exactly what I'm talking
| about, as long as it comes with enough commitment and
| momentum to actually do the job.
| kergonath wrote:
| Last time I looked the Royce SMR design could use the same
| fuel supply chain and processing facilities, which is a huge
| plus compared to having to set up everything all over again
| for something like metallic fuel.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Yeah the "network costs" bit should probably have a caveat about
| how they are a natural monopoly and are absolutely rinsing the UK
| for profits.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/nov/20/unite-union...
|
| "Supplier costs and margins" probably should take a fair bit of
| the blame too.
|
| When Thatcher privatised the UK energy industry to make it
| "competitive", they basically created an entire complex web of
| middlemen. The systems they use to communicate is enormously
| complicated, still kind of stuck in the 90s (think CSV over FTP),
| and would be basically unnecessary if it were just one company.
|
| Ok in fairness electricity makes more sense to privatise than
| water or railways - at least you _can_ choose where to buy your
| electricity from, within reason.
| amiga386 wrote:
| It's an interesting rathole to go down. On the one hand, there
| are private equity firms buying power stations and deliberately
| turning them off to reduce supply, knowing that National Grid
| will call them in a few hours paying them an even higher rate
| to turn them back on... but also those operators get detected
| and, months later, fined out the wazoo by the regulator for
| pulling a stunt like that.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/29/gas-fired-p...
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/aug/31/uk-electric...
|
| https://www.current-news.co.uk/ofgem-fines-intergen-37m-for-...
|
| Also, electricity isn't any less of a monopoly. You can choose
| _your supplier_ , but they do no more than administer your
| metering and billing (including the government insisting they
| install smart meters). Your house is still connected to the
| same domestic grid as everybody else, and it's National Grid
| plc that is selecting who's generating and when, and getting
| paid for it.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| > but also those operators get detected and, months later,
| fined out the wazoo by the regulator for pulling a stunt like
| that.
|
| The _ones that were detected_ were fined, we don 't know how
| much of that goes on but more subtly.
| amiga386 wrote:
| How does one _subtly_ turn off a power station?
|
| National Grid plc has minute-by-minute graphs. It can see
| you taking the piss, and its friends in Ofgem are on speed-
| dial.
|
| https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2023-08/Final%
| 2...
| RobotToaster wrote:
| I meant more subtle market/price manipulation.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| They aren't deliberately turning power stations off. We have
| a renewable system so when those sources aren't generating
| then we need gas.
|
| All the BBG article proved is the inherent problems with the
| system that we have. Rather than anyone being blamed for
| creating that system, rather than anyone being blamed for
| regulating that system, we get the same politically-motivated
| nonsense about "evil companies"...this is why we have high
| electricity costs. There is literally zero political
| incentive to lower them and, as we have seen, very high
| political gains from proposing fictional solutions. Guess
| what? We are still going to be in the exact same place in a
| few years because we haven't changed the thing causing this
| (over-reliance on renewables).
| euroderf wrote:
| I remember reading in the UK papers about one of the first
| water companies to privatize. The very first act of the board
| was to vote themselves a BIG pay raise.
| Symbiote wrote:
| It's only relatively recently that this is being dealt with:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/dec/19/thames-
| wate...
| HPsquared wrote:
| It does kind of make sense to have a market for the
| "generation" side with all the different types of power source
| that exist now. But the infrastructure is privately owned?
| That's crazy. Like privatising the motorway network!
|
| They did try with the railway network (Railtrack) which was
| subsequently renationalised and only the train operating
| companies being private (and even they, like electricity
| generating companies, are often state-owned by other
| countries...).
|
| Handing an entire national network monopoly to a single company
| is foolish.
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| They aren't rinsing profits.
|
| Out of the PS1700 average annual bill, supplier profits are
| PS43...this is significantly higher than has been the case
| normally because of the volatility in energy prices. This
| return is also controlled by the regulator.
|
| For scale, the cost of government subsidies is PS183.
|
| Predictably the first thing the incoming government did was:
| announce massive new subsidies, and create a state-owned energy
| company.
|
| Network costs have also gone up because of the well-known
| problems with performing work on any kind of infrastructure in
| the UK.
|
| The politics are part of the reason why costs are so high. We
| constantly rotate through insane policies that relate to the
| fever dreams of a lawyer. The reason why prices are high is
| because we have policies in place to increase prices. Companies
| are not making big profits (again, their returns are controlled
| by the regulators). Look at share prices, collapsing in the
| sector (unless they are getting government money).
| IshKebab wrote:
| You're mixing up two things. Suppliers (middlemen) aren't
| making any profit because the government has capped prices.
| They literally can't. But even when they could they didn't
| make that much profit because there's pretty good competition
| between them because consumers can choose.
|
| The issue with suppliers is they are spending a ton of money
| dealing with complexity that shouldn't exist, so even though
| they aren't making a profit they're costing you
| unnecessarily.
|
| The people who _are_ making a profit are DNOs. Totally
| different thing.
| goodpoint wrote:
| ...because houses are made of cardboard and use electricity for
| heating.
| xd wrote:
| I'm not sure where you've got this idea from. Even "new builds"
| in the UK, with there questionable building methods (which you
| may be referring to?) are mostly insulation and incredibly
| efficient to heat.
| desas wrote:
| The new builds are made of brick and block, and are indeed
| insulated really well. It's the millions of older houses,
| particularly Victorian ones, that are made of brick, are not
| usually insulated well, and are often intentionally draughty.
| Eavolution wrote:
| What would the reason for being intentionally draughty be?
| The only thing I can think of is if they were burning
| candles/gas lamps to improve air quality?
| neilalexander wrote:
| To reduce condensation and mould.
| albertgoeswoof wrote:
| Damp is worse than cold
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Resistive heating is still a big thing, including _new_
| products being developed.
|
| Here's the latest: electric instant water heaters designed as
| drop-in replacements for gas boilers in hydronic heating
| systems: https://stromltd.com
|
| All the inconveniences of a hydronic system _and_ resistive
| electric in a single solution, what 's not to like?
|
| This is the perfect "slumlord special", installed in place of
| more economical (and ecological) solutions such as A/C knowing
| full well the _tenant_ is going to pay the resulting
| astronomical bills.
| louthy wrote:
| > The UK has achieved the fastest rate of grid decarbonisation
| among advanced economies. A lot of this progress occurred when
| renewables were still expensive, so we are stuck with a cost
| hangover. Luckily, renewables are getting much cheaper, so the
| tradeoffs in future policy are very different.
|
| A silver lining at least. I'm old, so won't see the benefits of
| this I'm sure, but it's still nice to know we've made some
| tangible progress toward a cleaner future
| monsecchris wrote:
| It's so insignificant that at best we might delay the climate
| catastrophe by a few seconds
| Xelbair wrote:
| People might not like this, but that's true.
|
| as long as non-western countries keep polluting - even if we
| achieve net-zero nothing will change other than us feeling
| better and patting ourselves in the back.
| threeseed wrote:
| This is a very misguided view of the situation.
|
| a) The transition to clean energy, transportation etc by
| Western countries funds the development and investment in
| new technologies. These then filter down to developing
| countries when the economies of scale kick in e.g. solar
| panels, electric cars.
|
| b) There are also other benefits to cleaner solutions than
| just trying to achieve net-zero. Reductions in pollution
| reduce morbidity, improve productivity, improve happiness,
| secure food supply etc.
| graemep wrote:
| I think you overestimate the importance of what the West
| does. The West no longer dominates the world
| economically. Things no longer filter down the rest of
| the world as simply as you think. China is a bigger
| economy than any Western economy than the US, and is
| growing. India is about as big as any European economy.
| Both, and many other countries are doing more and more of
| their own R & D and have their own agendas.
| elcritch wrote:
| The West still leads in overall R&D. Even TSMC advanced
| nodes ultimately rely on western equipment and
| technology. New advancements in AI and vaccines were
| western as well.
|
| China has made impressive bounds in R&D but still lags in
| many fields of scientific research. Much of their
| research output is derivative in my experience of reading
| a fair bit of research articles in several fields.
|
| However China does lead in many fields of manufacturing.
| The western countries are far behind in there. That is
| important in terms of global leadership in renewable
| energy.
| threeseed wrote:
| a) China is third to US and EU in terms of GDP. And their
| economy is on a downwards trajectory.
|
| b) Majority of the early R&D in solar, EVs etc came from
| the US. China has been vital in driving unit economics.
| fragmede wrote:
| Knocking the western 30% of pollution down to zero is still
| meaningful, even if the remaining 70% isn't affected (which
| it will be). China, one is the most polluting non-western
| countries, is going to renewables and electric vehicles at
| a faster rate than some of the western countries.
| alecco wrote:
| * acording to CCP's reported numbers
| XorNot wrote:
| The CCP is at least heavily motivated to get rid of coal
| because the wealthy and leadership can't buy their way
| out of Shanghai's smog problem.
| greenavocado wrote:
| Drinking game. Drop Google Street View anywhere on the
| territory of India. If there is a trash pile visible, take
| a shot.
| Maken wrote:
| I would like to know what "fastest rate of grid
| decarbonisation" even means, because the UK is definitely not
| the nation with the largest share of renewable electricity
| production. I guess it measures how much energy production has
| transitioned from non-renewable to renewable sources in recent
| years.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-intensity-
| electric...
|
| They mean the rate of reduction in the metric graphed above.
| chippiewill wrote:
| It's the percentage cut in emissions relative to the 1990
| bench line.
| krona wrote:
| > the benefits
|
| The UK has 30GW of wind capacity. Two weeks ago wind was
| generating 1.8GW (5% of demand at the time). The benefits of a
| power source are only somewhat theoretical when you can't rely
| on it being there when you need it.
| jatin101 wrote:
| Commercial energy broker here - the only 2 'real' costs in your
| price are the wholesale and supplier costs. Choose suppliers that
| offer a fully-fixed electricity contract, so that made up
| variable costs such as distribution, network, etc are all
| factored into the unit rate that the supplier charges you for
| your contract. Avoid smart meters at all costs. Renewable / green
| contracts are always a lot more expensive than standard
| contracts. I help businesses across the UK get the lowest rates
| in the market, if it's something you need help with reach out to
| me - yousaveutilities.co.uk
| gnrl wrote:
| What's the reason to avoid smart meters?
| oceanplexian wrote:
| The security is broken and it broadcasts your information in
| the clear. I set up a RTLSDR plugged into my laptop in my
| kitchen and was able to read the energy utilization of my
| entire neighborhood after about 10min of work.
| benj111 wrote:
| what information is it actually leaking though?
|
| If someone wanted, they could drive up to my house and see
| the colour of my door. The fact that someone has always
| been able to create a database of front door colours isn't
| inherently a data leak.
|
| A UUID and electricity usage for the past half hour for a
| house in the general vicinity isn't useful. Even if you
| could put a name to that UUID, I struggle to think of how
| that would be a major issue. Especially considering with a
| thermal camera, and assuming construction details from the
| age and type of the house, you could already estimate your
| neighbours energy usage anyway.
|
| Remote shutoff on the other hand....
| krisoft wrote:
| Could you perhaps use it to monitor which houses are
| unoccupied?
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > The security is broken and it broadcasts your information
| in the clear. I set up a RTLSDR plugged into my laptop in
| my kitchen and was able to read the energy utilization of
| my entire neighborhood after about 10min of work.
|
| In America, yes. Here the meter->gateway is encrypted
| zigbee, the gateway is over 3/4g.
|
| However the remote contactor is more of an issue. You can
| be turned off remotely without much ceremony.
| dfawcus wrote:
| Where does "here" mean.
|
| In the UK only "central" England and south transmits data
| over the mobile network. In northern England and
| Scotland, the data is transmitted over UHF radio.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Sorry yes, I should have been more specific. The
| important thing is that it is reasonably well encrypted.
| Its not like the USA where they just yeet it in the clear
| for all to see.
|
| The downside is that the non cellular backhaul is
| provided by arquiva, who are shits.
| dfawcus wrote:
| Because they're designed for demand side load shedding.
|
| Also to enable "surge pricing" such that folks ration of
| disconnect themselves, rather than pay the surge price.
|
| Other than that, they don't really have a benefit for the
| user, the details one variable use could simply be monitored
| by manual reading on a weekly basis.
| vel0city wrote:
| > Avoid smart meters at all costs
|
| I don't mind smart meters; it's nice getting the metrics and
| data from them.
|
| I do avoid variable rate billing though.
| hagbard_c wrote:
| Variable billing can save you a lot of money, especially if
| you have your own generation capacity - PV panels, wind/water
| turbine etc - by making it possible to schedule maximum use
| during low-price (usually during the night, sometimes in the
| middle of the day) while minimising use during the morning
| and afternoon peaks. Play this right and you'll end up with
| negative electricity bills (in regions where small-scale
| producers can sell to the market, Sweden being an example of
| such). Contracts often stipulate that small-scale producers
| can not produce more _kWh_ than they consume. By scheduling
| consumption so that it either falls during times of excess
| own production - which makes it possible to avoid paying
| _energy taxes_ and _transport charges_ or when the market
| rates are the lowest you end up with as low a bill as
| possible. At the same time you can decide to export power to
| the network when you happen to have excess capacity at high-
| price moments thereby maximising income from electricity
| sales. Play this right and you 'll end up with net-negative
| electricity bills even while producing no more kWh than you
| consume.
| philjohn wrote:
| I'd look more into it - Octopus Agile can save you a heap of
| money, doubly so if you have Solar + Battery so can more
| effectively load balance.
|
| And Intelligent Octopus Go is a variable rate - 7p
| 23:30-05:30 (and any time during the day your EV is plugged
| in and there's a glut of green cheap energy on the grid).
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| Variable rate smart billing can be amazing if you have the
| right setup though!
|
| Eg. An electric car that can do V2G with the following;
|
| Power to the grid when Rate > Y and carCharge > 50%
|
| Charge the car when Rate < X.
|
| There's various posts on electric car groups where people have
| the above setup and pull in ridiculous profits. Your typical
| electric car can output power for a very long time during the
| ridiculous 10000% price hikes and on the flipside when the
| price occasionally hits ~0 charging is basically free.
|
| If you have some system of power storage variable rate can make
| you money.
|
| https://thedriven.io/2024/02/27/australian-evs-could-earn-12...
| vel0city wrote:
| And then you get some big energy dry spell and rates go to
| 1,000x their normal price and it starts costing you $20 to
| run the kettle for a few minutes.
|
| Hopefully you noticed that spike in prices ahead of time!
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| The fixed rates that companies charge just smooth out these
| variances since they all pay a variable rate behind the
| scenes. The fixed rate providers will do rolling brownouts
| if the grid gets to this state to save themselves from
| ruin. If you're on a variable rate you can choose to cut
| yourself off in these periods.
|
| Essentially the downside you mention is worse on the fixed
| rate: On fixed rate you'll have no power at all - the fixed
| rate providers will cut power completely to protect
| themselves financially if the grid is in a prolonged period
| of extreme price (they did this in Texas). On a variable
| rate you can choose to cut yourself off or not.
| vel0city wrote:
| > they did this in Texas
|
| That is not what happened in Texas. The REPs had zero say
| to do a rolling brownout. "Rolling" outages which became
| semi-permanent outages were done by the delivery
| companies, not the retail providers. Retail providers
| can't just choose to stop selling me electricity for a
| few hours because they think it's too unprofitable for
| them, that's not allowed in the contract. My REP at the
| time probably had some massive costs due to customers
| like me which didn't lose power; they folded and sold the
| contract to another company.
|
| > On a variable rate you can choose to cut yourself off
| or not.
|
| Once again, you clearly _don 't_ know what actually
| happened in Texas. Several people I know on variable rate
| plans lost power for days.
|
| But hey keep speaking falsehoods instead of actually
| learning what happened.
| rcxdude wrote:
| The second part is indeed wrong: most consumer energy
| markets have a wholesale market and grid operator, and
| the grid operator is ultimately responsible for the call
| on brown-outs. The companies that sell electricity retail
| to invididual homes are generally buying on that
| wholesale market, but they're not in a position to cut
| off their customers: there's straight-up no mechanism to
| do that on a moment's notice, because the grid-level
| control doesn't overlap with the retail seller's
| customers (these retail companies are often basically
| just a financial instrument that turns the combination of
| variable wholesale and grid operator fees into a fixed
| price bill and some customer support: your neighbour can
| buy from a completely different company and if anyone
| wants to shut off you but not them they need to come to
| your house and physically disconnect the lines). What
| happens in a situation like texas is that the retail
| companies who are selling at a fixed price start losing
| money fast, and can't really do anything about it in the
| short term. If they've built up enough of a buffer from
| their margins, they may survive, or they may go bankrupt
| and their customers will need to move to a different
| provider, but that's a process that takes weeks to
| months, not minutes in a price spike.
|
| (A similar thing happened in the UK: there weren't any
| brown-outs, but the spike in wholesale energy prices sent
| a lot of smaller retail energy companies under. If you
| were with one of them, like I was, you had no
| interruption to your supply and in fact won out compared
| to those on variable tarrifs: the losers were the
| investors in the retail companies and those who they were
| unable to pay).
|
| I will agree in general though: unless you have
| particularly unusual energy consumption habits, or think
| that the energy market will go up more than the retail
| companies thing they will, you'll probably win out on a
| variable rate contract over time, especially if you have
| a battery to time-shift your consumption (And with the
| most common UK provider for this, there is still a cap on
| how much you'll pay, even if wholesale prices skyrocket
| like they did in Texas).
| toast0 wrote:
| > if anyone wants to shut off you but not them they need
| to come to your house and physically disconnect the line
|
| I'm not in the UK, but I gather my utility can do a radio
| controlled disconnect (they may need to come onsite to
| reconnect). I would hope that wouldn't be used to enable
| a virtual brown out for customers of a particular energy
| marketplace, but I think it's a capability of many
| communicating meters.
| hagbard_c wrote:
| > on the flipside when the price occasionally hits ~0
| charging is basically free.
|
| Not where I live - Sweden - since there is a fixed _energy
| tax_ raised on electricity. We buy electricity on the
| artificial 'Nord Pool' market at market rates + 2.5 ore (1
| ore is 1/100 Swedish krona, at current exchange rates 1 ore
| is about equal to $0.009) surcharge which means that the
| actual electricity costs are 0 when the market rate is at
| -0.025 SEK/kWh. Such a 'free' kWh costs us around 0.88 SEK
| due to:
|
| - 0.4280 SEK energy tax
|
| - + 25% 'value-added tax' on top of that tax (yes, tax on tax
| is a thing here) makes this 0.5350 SEK/kWh
|
| - 0.34 SEK//kWh 'transport charge' (this includes 25% value-
| added tax)
|
| All this means the market rate per kWh has to fall below
| 0.905 SEK/kWh for electricity to actually be 'free'. This has
| happened but fortunately this is a rarity. Fortunately? Yes,
| of course. This basically only happens when there is a large
| discrepancy between electricity production and electricity
| demand/transport capacity which in turn lead to excessive
| voltage and frequency in the distribution network which in
| turn can lead to the network going off-line.
| longwave wrote:
| This smells like an advert. Over the last year I've spent less
| money on energy by being on Octopus Tracker (which requires a
| smart meter) over any fixed tariff.
| switch007 wrote:
| Many have also not and are switching away from Agile.
|
| It hit PS1 a couple of weeks ago. Ouch
|
| It's cheap if you use the majority of your energy in the wee
| hours right?
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| This is a deeply flawed but empathetic point of view. Sure,
| maybe the big bad smart meters are secretly conspiring against
| you. If things were so simple, why doesn't someone in the
| government just negotiate a simple price for everyone? Why have
| middlemen like you at all?
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Disclosure: I have a house battery.
|
| over the last three months, I've been paying on average 16p a
| unit. Thats with a car as well. On the days in the winter when
| solar isn't doing shit, we top up at the lowest price that day.
|
| This kinda goes to the articles point which is to you can
| avoid, or limit the peak with local storage.
|
| The issue with the battery is that its costs a shit tonne. a
| basic battery is going to cost something like PS8k installed.
|
| Its almost certainly cheaper to upgrade the grid compared to
| adding batteries to a million households. Especially as the
| lifespan of batteries isn't that long compared to the super
| grid.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The unsaid, "quiet part" about batteries is that they're a
| fire hazard. No matter how "safe" they are branded as, the
| failure mode is disastrous and life-threatening when they
| _do_ fail. It 's insane that those things are being sold and
| installed in homes at all. But then again this is in a
| country where installing solar power inverters in the attic
| of wooden houses was also a thing (no surprises as to what
| the outcome of a failure would be).
|
| Proper solution is to pool them in a dedicated buildings so
| you still get the benefit of locality at the neighborhood
| level while containing the consequences of a failure and
| limiting them to property damage (vs potential loss of life),
| but that would use up land that can otherwise be used as a
| way to (literally) seek rent, so it cannot happen.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > about batteries is that they're a fire hazard.
|
| yes, although they are statistically much safer than
| fridges, or combined washer driers. (unless you include
| cheap e-bikes or hoverboards...)
|
| I don't have mine inside the house, its very much outside
| with a wooden lintel supporting a surprisingly sandy flower
| trough.
|
| I also have micro inverters, because they are more
| efficient, and less fucking noisy. They are also, as you
| hint at, much safer. Partly because they are not switching
| ~400v DC but also because they don't need to handle as much
| power.
| philjohn wrote:
| Sorry, but this feels entirely wrong.
|
| If I didn't have a smart meter my levellised cost of energy
| wouldn't be negative like it is now (EV tariff + Solar +
| Battery).
| nradov wrote:
| I find it so weird that UK citizens have often just sort of
| passively chosen to be poor. Like they still had food rationing
| for _years_ after WW2. Is there some sort of cultural blind spot
| which prevents them from understanding that there are better ways
| to do things?
| jorblumesea wrote:
| This is rich, given you seem to be American.
| smeeger wrote:
| you have to admit english people have a weird tick when it
| comes to poverty. you worship poor people. and yes, you guys
| willingly live like you are poor when you guys are definitely
| not poor
| bfmalky wrote:
| This is such a weird take. I have no idea where you are
| getting your ideas from, but I don't know if you've heard
| of this thing we have in the UK called 'the class system'.
| Poor people are definitely not worshipped in the UK. And
| the wealthy do generally like to demonstrate their wealth
| in the usual ways (cars, homes, holidays, schooling, etc),
| so I'm wondering where you've got this idea that people in
| the UK somehow romanticise poverty.
| toolslive wrote:
| It's a cultural difference I observed between Europeans and
| Americans: Americans hate it being called
| unsuccessful/poor, but don't mind being called dumb.
| Europeans hate being called stupid, but don't mind being
| called unsuccessful/poor. Obviously, it's not a binary
| thing, but there's some fundamental difference in attitude.
| nradov wrote:
| Stupid is as stupid does. We Americans love Forrest Gump.
| Success comes more from hard work plus luck than from
| intelligence.
| jorblumesea wrote:
| I'm not english at all. Just pointing out that no American
| should ever be criticizing anyone for how their government
| and society is setup. The only reasons Americans need to be
| "rich" is because health insurance is a scam, a car
| accident can bankrupt you, the tax code is entirely for the
| wealthy, and social services are poor at best. It's a fake
| wealth, one where you can have 3M in investments and not be
| able to retire because the system is set up so poorly.
| vixen99 wrote:
| Not for long I suspect. There has been a rather marked
| exodus of millionaires from Britain since July as a result
| of a range of fiscal changes promised by the government.
| Some significant businesses have decided to relocate.
| Unrelated to this: now it's been found that a _majority_ of
| Brits receive more in benefits than they contribute in
| taxes. Not a good outlook. Meanwhile it 's estimated that
| the richest 1% of earners already pay 29% of the country's
| income tax.
| ben_w wrote:
| > now it's been found that a majority of Brits receive
| more in benefits than they contribute in taxes. Not a
| good outlook.
|
| Isn't it an automatic requirement of the income
| distribution?
|
| The median not being the mean, and all.
| desas wrote:
| > now it's been found that a majority of Brits receive
| more in benefits than they contribute in taxes
|
| This has been the case for decades. It's not news.
| kergonath wrote:
| But surely it's Labour's fault anyway. Damn socialists.
| petesergeant wrote:
| Can you give some examples? Other than the utter twatscape that
| was Brexit, it's a pretty competitive country in most ways
| hnburnsy wrote:
| Start by looking at the crazy over-regulation that happens to
| farmers in the UK.
| petesergeant wrote:
| I thought they were still pretty well in sync with the old
| EU laws (CAP) -- what are some specific examples you object
| to?
| hnburnsy wrote:
| NVZ, EIA, animal tracking, just to name a few that have a
| high burden, with little benefit.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| > Like they still had food rationing for years after WW2
|
| To be fair the UK was completely broke and responsible for
| feeding half of Europe.
| bfmalky wrote:
| What a bizarre thing to say.
|
| I guess there are some examples of self sabotage, such as
| Brexit, but no, on the whole people in the UK do not choose to
| be poor. Like any nation we are at the mercy of the outcomes of
| the decisions of our politicians and larger global effects that
| are out of our control.
|
| Also, there are plenty of wealthy people in the UK. You do know
| that right? The UK is still around 6th in the nominal GDP
| rankings, so not quite an economic basket case (yet).
| skippyboxedhero wrote:
| It isn't bizarre.
|
| The UK has many policies in place that are designed to limit
| output. These policies are not only not unpopular, they are
| wildly popular and are basically impossible to change.
|
| Housing is one, infrastructure is another. Like people say we
| aren't choosing to poor...HS2 is the most expensive rail
| project ever per mile, double the cost of the outrageously
| expensive one in California. Why? Because our system gives
| unlimited power to lawyers, consultants...we were building
| bat tunnels (literally tunnels for bats) that cost PS100m.
|
| And it isn't limited to this. Look at the last Budget: we are
| in the middle of fiscal collapse. Tens of billions for green
| energy projects that add to the cost of bills, huge pay rises
| for the public sector (where productivity is at the same
| level as 1997), on and on.
|
| How can you not think this stuff is intentional? There is no
| reason for almost everything we are doing, it makes
| absolutely no sense but we are being driven off the cliff by
| politicians, civil servants, lawyers, media/PR, consultants
| who control this country...to rephrase that: you are saying
| that there was no reason 11th century Britain couldn't become
| very rich when it was funnelling all the money to monasteries
| that were producing nothing but fat monks? The intention of
| the system isn't to make Britain rich, it is make people
| inside the system rich...which it is doing (again, HS2 cost
| PS1bn for a railway that didn't get built...where do you
| think that money goes? there is no railway but there were
| tens of thousands of consultants...).
| amiga386 wrote:
| I find it weird that _medical bankruptcies_ are a thing, or
| people involved in car crashes demanding they _don 't_ get an
| ambulance and critical emergency care, because they know
| they'll be billed thousands or hundreds of thousands for being
| _out-of-network_.
|
| Is there some sort of cultural blind-spot?
|
| Or maybe each country has their own ups and downs, and we can
| accept that even if there is objectively a "better way" to do
| things, and a country's government can be convinced to try this
| better way, it stil has to bring the people along with it, and
| those millions of people all have all kinds of hangups and
| incentives that get in the way; politics are hard.
|
| With regard to post-war food rationing, much of it was due to
| crop failure or stockpiles being ruined by terrible weather,
| and obviously the rest of Europe was ravaged and destroyed. But
| it was also political. Labour liked rationing and the Tories
| didn't, and the Tories stoked public anger at it. Clearly the
| UK citizens _didn 't_ like it, it was the main fight of the
| 1950 general election.... which Labour narrowly won. Then
| Labour called a snap election in 1951, won a record high
| voteshare, but narrowly lost to the Tories.
|
| If you're genuinuely interested in the topic, Wikipedia has an
| informative timeline:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_the_United_Kingdo...
| CommanderData wrote:
| Soon enough we'll have the best of both worlds. High taxes,
| stripped out NHS then American style medical and bankruptcy.
|
| Can't wait for people to moan about it on LBC.
| switch007 wrote:
| No, the US actively chose to make us poor
| ben_w wrote:
| > Is there some sort of cultural blind spot which prevents them
| from understanding that there are better ways to do things?
|
| Yes, but it's not specifically British: most nations (and many
| companies) I've looked at in any depth seem to have this blind
| spot -- "not invented here" is one of several kinds of in-group
| favoritism.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_favoritism
|
| Also see this with diets, religious and political affiliations,
| and back in the day used to see it with Mac vs. PC.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The UK is completely broken by corruption disguised as
| incompetence, with everyone in power to change things profiting
| off the status-quo and thus having no incentive to make the
| change. Add in a steady stream of distractions where the media
| sows race/xenophobia warfare so the people are too busy
| fighting between themselves to realize who their real enemy is.
| hughes wrote:
| Is 906 GBP (~1100 USD) typical for a household? That seems
| outrageously high.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Yes
|
| Type | yearly usage | average annual cost
|
| Low (flat or 1-bedroom house / 1-2 people) | 1,800 kWh |
| PS669.95
|
| Medium (3-bedroom house / 2-3 people) | 2,900 kWh | PS943.36
|
| High (5-bedroom house / 4-5 people) | 4,300 kWh | PS1,291.34
|
| source: https://www.britishgas.co.uk/energy/guides/average-
| bill.html
| dukeyukey wrote:
| Annually, that sounds about right.
| hughes wrote:
| Oh, I thought this was monthly. The article doesn't specify,
| and all other bills I've seen are monthly. Do Brits pay
| annually?
| rcxdude wrote:
| You don't pay annually, but because of the substantial
| variation in energy usage throughout the year, you'll
| generally price-compare on an annual basis, and usually the
| monthly payment is a kind of pro-rata value where you over-
| pay in summer and under-pay in winter.
| wiether wrote:
| Electricity consumption will vary during the year so it
| seems fair to give the yearly total to have the actual
| cost; and you can divide by twelve if your prefer a monthly
| average.
|
| Meanwhile, if they only gave a monthly figure, one could
| wonder if it's an average or if it's taken in January or
| July.
| porker wrote:
| Normally pay monthly by Direct Debit, but because usage
| varies so much between summer and winter we assess and
| estimate usage annually.
| usr1106 wrote:
| This is how it used to be in Finland, too. More houses
| than in many other countries are heated electrically.
| With the cold winters here the variation is extra big.
|
| Still since a couple of years ago bills have to be paid
| according to monthly (sometimes bimonthly) real
| consumption. I had the feeling this was even a regulatory
| requirement to make people aware of the real costs and
| encourage saving. Cannot find a reference to that now.
| Either I remember it wrong or the search results are just
| too polluted by marketing pages.
|
| All meters are read remotely with hourly precision. An
| increasing share of households has spot price contracts.
| So the price changes every hour. Sometimes negative,
| sometimes 60 cents/kWh or more to mention the extremes.
| Switching to 15 minute pricing is on the way already
| switch007 wrote:
| PS900/mo would bankrupt most of the country lol
| dfawcus wrote:
| Historically quarterly. Some of us still do pay on that
| schedule.
| a2tech wrote:
| In a historic home in the Midwest a single month in the depths
| of of the winter could easily be 700-800 usd.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| That's crazy. I live in New York in an old drafty house. My
| highest bill is about $400-450 and it's much colder here.
| Those rates are brutal.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| This is an extreme outlier. I have a 4,700 square foot home
| in the Midwest, electric heating (heat pump + backup direct
| heat) and only occasionally hit $300/mo in a cold spell.
| gsk22 wrote:
| Heat pumps are something like 5-6x as efficient as
| resistive electric heaters. So no surprise that your bill
| would be lower.
|
| Of course, heating an entire house with (non-heat-pump)
| electric heat in a cold climate is kind of crazy. Natural
| gas is way way cheaper. But I've seen it in old houses here
| in the Upper Midwest, so it's not _too_ out of the
| ordinary.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Heat pumps are so affordable now, that just feels like a
| poor decision-making rather than an economic hardship.
| You could finance a heat pump and the savings would pay
| itself off in a year.
| grapesodaaaaa wrote:
| I was also going to point that out. Resistive electric
| heating costs could easily reach that much, but it's a
| horribly inefficient way to heat your house.
| dnissley wrote:
| My first house was in the midwest, built around 1920, and
| had plaster walls with no insulation. It was only around
| 1400 sqft, but we did have (natgas) heating bills in that
| range ($600-$700/mo December through February).
| Havoc wrote:
| Monthly as others have said.
|
| 900 is a small household with limited heating, more like a
| condo than house.
| trebligdivad wrote:
| How much does digging a hole or laying a cable cost here in the
| UK compared to elsewhere? I'm just trying to get a feel for
| whether things like the transmission/distribution network costs
| are higher than elsewhere.
| HPsquared wrote:
| The HS2 project is mostly that - and very, very expensive it
| seems.
| drcongo wrote:
| The same author wrote the blog post that was on the front page
| here recently about the plummeting cost of solar [0]. I really
| like his posts, readable by someone like me who is way below
| _layman_ on the subject, but I think also pretty interesting to
| someone with experience in the field.
|
| [0] https://climate.benjames.io/solar-off-grid/
| dfawcus wrote:
| Yeah, but that is pretty much an irrelevance here in the UK.
|
| We don't even get that much sun in summer, today sunrise was at
| 0842, sunset at 1540 - so not even 7 hrs of daylight. Even then
| it was a very dull day.
|
| So in the period (winter) when we most need power, local solar
| is essentially useless.
|
| Local wind may be better, but the economics for it don't really
| work - requiring 100% gas turbine backup, and high costs due to
| intermittent use of said turbines .
| drcongo wrote:
| The author is in the UK and covers most of that in the
| article.
| edent wrote:
| Sorry, that's not true. I have (non-optimal) solar panels in
| the UK. I generate 100% of my annual electricity usage from
| them across the year.
|
| In summer, I can easily get over 20kWh per day - against a
| daily usage of 10kWh. I release all of my data at
| https://gitlab.com/edent/solar-data/
|
| Today, in the dead of winter, I got 2.8kWh - https://bsky.app
| /profile/solar.bots.edent.tel/post/3ldqqrvkw... - a not
| insignificant amount. My battery charged overnight, so I only
| drew about 4kWh from the grid during the day.
|
| You can read all about how well solar works in the UK on my
| blog https://shkspr.mobi/blog/tag/solar/
| graybeardhacker wrote:
| The graph shows the price for 3100 kWh. I'm not sure if that is a
| very low annual amount or a very very high monthly amount.
|
| The average US household uses 10,000 kWh annually ~833 kWh per
| month. So I'm guessing most Americans reading the article and
| looking at the interactive graph are thinking either: this is
| very cheap or very expensive, depending on whether they are
| assuming it's monthly or annual.
|
| In the US the average price for 3100 kWh in California would be
| $1062 which is among the highest in the continental US. So right
| in line with GB.
|
| In New York it would be $710. Florida it would be $454.
|
| So it's high, but not as eye-watering as it seemed to me
| initially.
| piva00 wrote:
| Median income and take home pay should be brought into account
| though. California has one of the highest even by US standards
| so a $1000 bill for the median Californian family feels much
| less expensive than for the median Manchester family.
| bfmalky wrote:
| That's the annual figure. But just for electricity. Most UK
| homes are heated with gas, and many have gas stoves, so the
| average kWh annual gas figure is much higher (~12,000kWh).
| Aachen wrote:
| We're at ~3.6 MWh in a ground floor apartment with 2 adults,
| with water heating (e.g. showering) electric but building
| heating on gas (though we use a space heater a lot as well,
| probably to the tune of 0.2 MWh/year)
| Hamuko wrote:
| I wonder if I should feel bad since I'm currently at 2830 kWh
| in 2024 for a single household with all heating costs not
| coming out of my electric bill.
| klasma wrote:
| I'm at ~1200 kWh for what sounds like the same.
| switch007 wrote:
| We mostly don't have AC, we have tiny houses, our heating is
| gas powered. Lots of showers aren't electric either. We don't
| use huge amounts compared to the US
| nine_k wrote:
| Gladly would, but few can afford :-/
| J_McQuade wrote:
| 3100 kWh is the figure set by the regulator as the
| representative annual usage used to calculate prices for e.g.
| tariff comparison between suppliers. It makes sense to use it
| here.
| matthewmorgan wrote:
| Californian pricing would be okay if we had Californian living
| standards.
| Hilift wrote:
| There is clearly a difference between states that invested in
| projects that went over budget. Power generation is cheaper in
| a lot of states due to the price of natural gas is dramatically
| lower than it was 20 years ago. Florida uses gas for 75% of
| electricity.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| An important reason that power is expensive in the UK is that it
| doesn't use zonal pricing and is effectively not giving the right
| price signals to consumers of power to move closer to where the
| cheap power is (e.g. data centers) or to conserve power when
| power is expensive; or producers of power to invest in power
| generation closer to where the power is scarce and expensive.
|
| Another point to make is that the national wholesale price of
| power in the UK is based on the price of the most expensive thing
| in the market at any point. Which now that they shut down coal is
| usually gas which at this point the UK mostly imports because gas
| production in the North Sea fields has been petering out. It no
| longer is the cheap resource it once was.
|
| Even Scotland which either exports or curtails dirt cheap wind
| power most of the time gets to pay expensive gas rates for their
| power. Why is power curtailment a thing there? Because there is
| no price incentive to use the power. Otherwise people might be
| doing sane things like charging their EVs, powering their heat
| pumps, etc. Instead Scotland imports gas for heating and petrol
| for driving their cars. At the same time they curtail wind power
| by the GW.
|
| Greg Jackson from Octopus (who are the largest energy operator in
| the UK) has been calling for this for some time. I don't live
| there but his name comes up a lot in several of the clean energy
| podcasts I follow. Smart person that has a lot of sensible things
| to say on this topic.
| chickenbig wrote:
| > and is effectively not giving the right price signals to
| consumers of power to move closer
|
| While I sympathise with the notion of zonal pricing, there are
| side-effects to making the change, especially when power is
| intermittent e.g. https://www.uksteel.org/steel-
| news-2024/businesses-write-to-... . I'm not sure what the
| correct metric is.
|
| > the national wholesale price of power in the UK is based on
| the price of the most expensive thing in the market at any
| point
|
| How much of the electricity demand goes through a bilateral
| agreement (or one where generation and retail are the same
| organisation, like EDF)? Also I seem to recall that the "pay
| the highest accepted bidder model" used to be argued as
| lowering the bids, resulting in a lower cost to the consumer!
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Zonal also has issues with congestion, lack of locational price
| signals, and something called inc/dec gaming. A Nodal design
| (like in many US wholesale markets) fixes this, but some of the
| key policy makers are reluctant to go in that direction as it
| would be a ~7 year project and would introduce revenue
| uncertainty in the meantime when they are trying to decarbonize
| and need to make it easy for developers to get financing. Both
| pro/against arguments for nodal pricing have merit. There have
| been many discussions on this in government.
|
| Marginal cost based pricing is extremely unintuitive to those
| outside of the field, but nearly all economists support it. The
| reason is that this eliminates a lot of the gaming in pay-as-
| bid designs and helps incentivize investment in more
| efficient/cheaper generation, while driving out less efficient
| clunkers that may not be profitable anymore. The reality is of
| course far more complicated. These markets have saved untold
| amounts of money by optimizing over large regions, but you can
| also point out "missing money" problems where there simply
| isn't enough investment in generators with access to firm fuel
| (as opposed to when we just had monopoly utilities). As a
| result, much of the US has an "at risk" or "very high risk" of
| not having enough generation during summer/winter peak.
| singhrac wrote:
| Yeah, I'm not sure I understand your argument here. I work in
| the area. I can understand revenue uncertainty, but the
| solution is to sign a PPA. When Texas transitioned to a nodal
| market many existing generators got grandfathered into zonal
| pricing via free options, which is doable (e.g. any project
| built in the next 5 years will get this free option).
|
| Give me an example of a "missing money" problem. I don't
| think these problems exist when you have capacity markets or
| ancillary service markets with enough incentives to exist
| (e.g. payments for standing offline, ready to turn on).
|
| The big issue with UK power markets is that there is no
| incentive to build a huge power line down the country right
| now that delivers power from Scotland (where there are huge
| wind resources) to the rest of the country. Texas did this
| (very very successfully) with the CREZ.
|
| The UK has many many competent engineers and making the
| energy grid more efficient is an attractive opportunity for
| many.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| I've also worked in the area for many years.
|
| PPAs typically require the bank to be counterparty and that
| requires a forecast of the prices that will be received in
| the market over a lengthy period. The folks at Ofgem talked
| about how going nodal would be nice, but that they are
| worried about it being such a big project (these markets
| typically take 5-7 years to go from design to
| implementation in the US) that would take focus away from
| what is already mostly working for them. Overall,
| completely changing the market structure leads to
| uncertainty that investors don't like.
|
| The grandfather point is a good one. Something could
| possibly be done there, but not sure of the complications.
|
| The missing money problem is very much a real thing. You're
| right that capacity markets and other resource adequacy
| mechanisms create side payments to fix this, but not
| everyone has that. Texas infamously had an energy-only
| design that hasn't worked out so well and is why they have
| so many ongoing proposals like the PCM to address the
| reliability issues. It is also why fast start pricing has
| been pushed so hard by FERC. Even with the capacity
| markets, there are numerous issues such as the extremely
| high prices in PJM that is leading to numerous lawsuits and
| condemnation from their independent market monitor. The
| markets work well at reducing costs, but there are a lot of
| ongoing issues being addressed in numerous stakeholder
| groups and at FERC.
| singhrac wrote:
| Sorry, I didn't mean to imply you hadn't, just offering a
| reason why I had a strong opinion.
|
| Am I misunderstanding what you mean by counterparty? In
| the US, banks provide the tax equity and sometimes the
| project finance, but the PPA counterparty is a consumer,
| i.e. a utility or a large load (e.g. tech company data
| center). The forecast is necessary, but like I said, the
| uncertainty can be hedged.
|
| Well, I'm talking about how linking a nodal market to a
| capacity or ancillary service market is necessary (i.e.
| purely nodal market without payments for reliability
| don't make sense). Texas's energy-only design would not
| have been saved from the 2021 disaster via a capacity
| market or a zonal price (gas availability dropped by
| 45%).
|
| I think the PCM was always misguided and unnecessary
| (from just cursory understanding). I don't have time to
| respond to all the points about various capacity markets,
| but unfortunately a busy time of year, and will respond
| later.
| deergomoo wrote:
| > Greg Jackson from Octopus (who are the largest energy
| operator in the UK) has been calling for this for some time. I
| don't live there but his name comes up a lot in several of the
| clean energy podcasts I follow. Smart person that has a lot of
| sensible things to say on this topic.
|
| I've got a lot of time for Octopus, which is an odd thing to
| say about a utility company. It's amazing how much of a
| difference it can make when a company makes it a. pretty easy
| to speak to someone when you have a problem or question
| (especially via email) and b. getting that problem sorted or
| question answered isn't so arduous you want to jump off a
| bridge. It once took me six months to convince British Gas to
| actually start charging me for my gas and electric.
|
| Plus every time there's a price cap change or something out of
| the ordinary going on, they send out emails explaining it in
| plain English (including, as you say, reiterating the case that
| our pricing model is utterly daft). They also have an API for
| customers so you can pull your usage data, which is pretty
| neat.
| gambiting wrote:
| I must be the only person in the UK that has had an abysmal
| experience with Octopus, where they gave me a quote in
| writing, I attempted to sign up for it, couldn't due to
| "technical difficulties" on their end but got another email
| promising that the quote will be honoured once the
| difficulties are resolved....and of course once they finally
| fixed their system a month later they refused to honour it. I
| kept forwarding copies of emails they sent higher and higher
| up and finally was assigned a "senior customer agent" who
| basically said their decision is final and I can take them to
| an ombudsman if I want to. Then they couldn't bill me
| correctly for 6 months straight because no one knew why my
| smart meter wasn't sending them data, and then another time
| they literally provided incorrect information about my IHD
| when I asked why is the price for my tariff wrong. They are
| an absolutely useless company and I'd switch in a heartbeat
| if there was anyone else with a similar offering for charging
| EVs, no one else gets even close.
| omnibrain wrote:
| It's exactly the same in Germany. In addition the state
| government of Bavaria in the south east does everything to keep
| wind power from being built in their state and worked against
| high voltage power lines to bring cheap and abundant energy
| from the north to his state.
| fakedang wrote:
| To be honest, Bavaria isn't the ideal place for wind power
| imo, WHEN THERE ARE ALTERNATIVES.
|
| Braindead Germany just woke up and decided that they want to
| do away with nuclear and suck the icy cold teats of Mother
| Russia.
|
| Wind isn't suited for inland Germany, especially in a place
| like Bavaria, which has the frickking Black Forest ecosystem
| and a mountainous terrain. Not to mention the winds are much
| slower there than in North Germany. For the cost calculus
| that wind energy provides, it's best suited for underutilized
| offshore areas or desert climates.
|
| Germany forcing wind power is basically a sorry excuse they
| have to compensate for their energy shortfall - wind and
| solar can be deployed relatively faster, but of course solar
| doesn't make sense in Germany, hence the government is trying
| to shove down wind.
| Propelloni wrote:
| You are free to believe what you want, but the Black Forest
| is not in Bavaria. Some other observations are not wrong
| per se, but heavily spin-doctored. For example, the average
| wind speed in Bavaria is 6.9 m/s, which is about 2m/s
| slower than average wind speed in Schleswig-Holstein but
| very much in the economical range of wind energy facilities
| of 3 to 12 m/s, or gas imports from Russia to Europe have
| fallen by ~70% from end of 2021 to end of 2023 which is
| still too much, but not exactly sucking a teat, and so on.
| graemep wrote:
| > Even Scotland which either exports or curtails dirt cheap
| wind power most of the time gets to pay expensive gas rates for
| their power
|
| 1. window power is not "dirt cheap" because of the rates the
| wind farms get paid. As you said they get paid the wholesale
| rate, and IIRC it is the greater of the wholesale rate and a
| minimum rate they are guaranteed by the government.
|
| 2. the reason curtailment happens UK's is because there is a
| lack of grid capacity to take it where it is needed. Most of
| the wind generating capacity is in Scotland, which has about
| 10% of the UK's population. This part of the problem would be
| helped by cheaper rates when there is excess energy, but
| increasing the use of wind power would mean higher bills
| because of 1.
|
| The cost of fixing this will mean building grid capacity, so it
| means higher electricity bills.
|
| There is a good explanation here:
| https://climate.benjames.io/uk-electricity-bills/
|
| The TL;DR version is we built wind power when it was expensive,
| subsidised it at those prices, and now are stuck with paying
| for it at those prices.
| bob1029 wrote:
| > Octopus
|
| I was briefly a customer of theirs in the US while they were
| still doing variable/index/wholesale rates. They wrote a good
| article about this:
|
| https://octopusenergy.com/blog/index-prices-are-under-threat...
| gehsty wrote:
| No expert but there is segmentation in terms of network costs
| to generators (tnuos), which come out of the CFD generators are
| awarded, so while bill payers have a single cost the utilities
| that generate their power do feel the effect of where they
| build their plant.
| pxeger1 wrote:
| FWIW, the government is in the middle of reviewing how the
| electricity market works, although it's probably not going to
| be implemented until 2025+
| https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/review-of-electric...
| WalterBright wrote:
| We had similar problems with the Nixon/Ford/Carter price and
| allocation controls on gasoline. There were shortages and long
| lines in some states and gluts in others. Carter was baffled
| about what to do.
|
| Reagan ended it on day one with an Executive Order to repeal
| the controls. The lines disappeared overnight and never
| returned.
| jnsaff2 wrote:
| Here's a controversial take: electricity is incredibly cheap _for
| the utility it provides_.
|
| It is also a fairly well working market _in the current system
| context_.
|
| I witnessed this by working for an electricity related startup
| and by doing all the math involved it was really hard to make the
| math work out right. The possibility to optimize is there but the
| margins are really slim, even with the large price swings in the
| time of use markets in EU.
|
| Can the infrastructure be better? Absolutely, it needs ton of
| work, but again margins are slim and incentives for large
| improvements are small.
|
| Do we have a dire need for renewable and moreover dispatchable
| renewable energy? Absolutely. This means more clean generation
| and more storage (quite hard).
|
| Does energy _feel_ expensive for households? Yes.
|
| Is it actually expensive?
|
| Could you imagine life without it?
|
| What would it be like?
|
| If you were in this situation, how much would you be willing to
| pay then?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > Is it actually expensive? Could you imagine life without it?
|
| I don't think this kind of rhetoric helps in any way those who
| are in "fuel poverty" (which seems to be a UK specific term, as
| I've never heard that in any other context) and have to choose
| between food or heating.
|
| Energy is not some magic supernatural thing we're running out
| of. Given the right equipment it can be created out of thin air
| (wind and/or solar). The reason UK's energy prices are so high
| is decades of corruption disguised as
| mismanagement/incompetence, not that the absolute price of
| electricity is somehow high.
| dtgriscom wrote:
| Nitpick: such recurring costs are not "expensive"; they are
| "high". It's like saying a plane is flying at a "large" altitude,
| or a car on the highway is traveling at a "big" speed.
|
| Native english speaker, but definitely not a grammarian, so I
| can't explain why...
| yumraj wrote:
| The rate shown is 29p which comes to 36 cents.
|
| It is substantially less than PG&E California prices, which
| average around 50-55 cents.
| Havoc wrote:
| Nobody is getting california salaries in rural UK though...
| yumraj wrote:
| Fair point - I did not consider purchasing price parity.
| philjohn wrote:
| I'm in the UK and with solar and battery, and having an EV
| there are tariffs out there where the levellised cost you'll
| pay is approaching 7p per kWh.
|
| Intelligent Octopus Go is one example - between 23:30 and 05:30
| all of your electricity usage is 7p per kWh, for the entire
| house. For this, you give up controlling when your EV is
| charged as Octopus either control it through the car, or
| through a compatible charger. When your car is plugged in, they
| build a charging schedule when the grid is cheapest and
| greenest. You give them an "I need to add this % of charge and
| it to be done by this time tomorrow morning" and it just works
| it out. On days with a glut of renewable generation (i.e., it's
| very windy, or very sunny) you will get half hour slots at 7p
| during the day as well.
|
| Now comes the solar and PV element - their "outgoing octopus"
| export scheme pays 15p per kWh, so in the summer you can build
| a nice credit buffer from exported excess energy, and then in
| the winter, charge the battery whenever the cheap rate is
| active and given a big "enough" battery, most of your usage
| will cost you 7p + 5-10% (efficiency losses from AC/DC/AC
| conversion).
|
| The payback period for Solar + Battery, especially in the UK
| where we aren't saddled with high tariffs for panels, is coming
| down markedly. It used to be well in excess of a decade, but is
| between 5-10 years now.
| jeffbee wrote:
| According to the EIA Monthly, average California residential
| prices were 30C/ in October. Your statement is closer to being
| correct if you say "PG&E prices" instead of "California
| prices". PG&E has ~6 million accounts in a state of 40 million
| people.
| yumraj wrote:
| Updated..
| kranke155 wrote:
| The Uk should just burn coal for a while. I'm sorry but it's the
| only sane solution. The current energy prices are wiping out the
| economy.
| asdefghyk wrote:
| To pay for renewable energy ? Thats what's happening in my
| country , although renewable energy supporters claim renewables
| are cheaper. .....
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